teaching and learning

This post is a mixture of resources for several levels of French, from absolute beginners (CEFR A1) to advanced users (C1+). I’ve focused on free online resources, plus some that are in public libraries: in celebration and encouragement of open access.

Some are available through university libraries such as our own here at UBC; many of these can also be accessed for free through public libraries. If uncertain or stumped, consult a librarian: if anyone can help you, it will be a librarian, because librarians are awesome knowledge superheroes with superpowers. (more…)

I (Dr O’Brien) am sharing some general useful resources below: openly-accessible freely-available information from the University. I use these resources a lot in the advising side of my work, you might also find them helpful, and they could also help you to help someone else. There are many people here at UBC who can help; even if it is “just” talking to someone with whom you feel comfortable and whom you trust, who will listen to you, that alone is already a vital service.

The same goes for any need to talk and to find support, whether something has happened to you or to someone you know, and also if nothing has happened but you worry that it might. Even if sometimes this seems like an overwhelmingly large university, and impersonal through its size and complexity: UBC is a compassionate caring community, made up of individual human beings.

It is time for the annual pilgrimage. So as to make this a slower and longer pilgrimage than last year, to commemorate a 10th anniversary (well, two: the death of a central person and the birth of a marginal blog), this post is was a “sticky” one for a whole academic term, all the way to its end and the end of the year; and it contains various kinds of “stickiness” played out in three Acts: revisiting 2017, 2018, and Campbellian education in action.

ACT I: REVISITING 2017

Today is the anniversary of the death of Ken Campbell, anarchist polymath genius.

Public outreach educator and life-long learning experimenter in ways beyond the wildest imaginings of Proper Professionals in these fields before they or these fields even existed. The next time you consider using words like “innovation,” “innovative,” “innovator”: have some respect. Think first. Check with reference to Ken. If philology provides a theoretical meaning, it is Ken who provides—incarnates—a reference-point for lived active practice. (more…)